There is a strange but wonderful vegetable waiting to be rediscovered in northern grocery stores.
This strange vegetable is often large, lumpy and resembling something from a forgotten time. I have to admit that I never liked this vegetable until I grew it.
My prejudice of the root was based purely on the outward appearance of this old northern staple. What lies inside, is the magic that a good cook book can help unlock.
Rutabaga or "swede" has been used in northern cuisine since its discovery in 1620 by Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin growing in the wild.
Rutabagas are in the mustard family, which include cabbage, broccoli, kale and collards (other great hardy northern plants). Rutabaga contains significant amounts of vitamin C - 100 grams contains 25 mg, which is 42 per cent of the daily recommended dose. Goodbye tropical oranges from drought-stricken California, we northerners have our own vitamin C.
This lovely vegetable was the European equivalent to the North American pumpkin when it came to Halloween time.
Kids were carving this vegetable into horrific masks and lanterns in the days of old.
Though I am against the use of food grown for use as play things and decorations, I can't help but think about the use of this vegetable once again as Halloween decorations here in the north and the removal of the imported pumpkins from farms in the states or southern British Columbia.
After a request from a customer to grow this vegetable, I gave this odd character a go in our field and fell in love with its old-world charm and taste.
My wife and I first began experimenting with ways of cooking the vegetable, such as sneaking it in mashed potatoes.
We then started to julienne the rutabaga as a salad piece, but the real magic happened with my wife came across a recipe for creamed rutabaga and leek soup.
Basically, you sweat your leeks in butter, add diced rutabaga and a touch of stock, simmer for an hour then use a blender to puree into a creamy texture with a touch of milk and voila! This will be a soup to go into our home recipe book for sure, and will be used for those cold days we spend chopping firewood on the farm.
Next time you are at the farmer's market or the grocery store, I suggest to you that maybe you should take home this thick bulbous yellowish root and start learning the magic that is hidden within this northern root crop.
